NEW YORK — U.S. stocks rose Friday, lifting the S&P 500 index to its first finish above 1,500 since late 2007, on improving profit from Procter & Gamble Co. and other quarterly results.

The Standard & Poor’s 500’s close above 1,500 could bring hesitant investors back into the market, strategists said.

“A lot of folks still on the sidelines from 2007 thinking the world is coming to an end” may reconsider equities, said Art Hogan, market strategist at Lazard Capital Markets. “It’s one of the infrequent times that Wall Street news makes the Main Street media in a positive fashion.”

Up for an eighth consecutive session and notching its longest win streak since a nine-day run that ended in early November 2004, the S&P 500 rose 8.14 points Friday, or 0.5 percent, to 1,502.96, leaving it up 1.1 percent for the week.

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 70.65 points, or 0.5 percent, to 13,895.98, up 1.8 percent from the week-ago close.

Stock indexes only briefly curbed their gains Friday after the Commerce Department reported that the nation’s sales of new homes fell 7.3 percent in December. Shares in the homebuilding sector traded mostly higher, however.

“The housing market is generally positive and causing an upward bias to the market, (and) quarterly earnings are generally in line to above expectations,” said Terry Sandven, chief equity strategist at U.S. Bank Asset Management.

Growth in emerging markets should be a positive factor for many U.S. multinationals and is “one catalyst that could see earnings to the upside; you’re seeing some of that with fourth-quarter results,” he said.

“That said, I think the market is a little ahead of itself, and I would like to see it go sideways in coming weeks to take some of the adrenaline out of the market,” Sandven added.

Procter & Gamble reported second-quarter profit well above expectations, with the household-products maker also raising its sales and earnings outlook for the fiscal year. The company’s shares rose 4 percent, making it the best performer in the Dow.

AirPods have become a rare public misstep for Apple. In September, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller hailed the earbuds as the entree to a wireless future, with seamless connection to an iPhone and a five-hour battery life.

The brokerage industry’s self-regulator has asked employees fired by Wells Fargo & Co. and stripped of their securities registrations to come forward if they have concerns over their treatment, the latest sign of growing scrutiny on the bank.

Ford Motor Co. is going ahead with plans to move small-car production from the U.S. to Mexico despite President-elect Donald Trump’s recent threats to impose tariffs on companies that move work abroad.